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Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950)

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than saying a drunken man is happier than a sober man.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

I was brought up in that other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear.

The Churches must learn humility as well as teach it.

Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Life is a disease; and the only diference between one another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

CP Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

England and America are two countries seperated by the same language.

Success covers a multitude of blunders.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

You see things, and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were, and say "Why not?

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

CP A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

CP A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

A doctor's reputation is made by the number of eminent men who die under his care.

If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach any conclusion.

The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist.

We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

What is virtue but the trades unionism of the married.

Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols, or bombs without incurring any penalties.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.

The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

A pessimist thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

The 100% American is 99% an idiot.

A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.

To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

The love of money is the root of all virtue.

All my life, affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.

There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject.

My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.

If more than ten percent of the population likes a painting it should be burned, for it must be bad.

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

I've posed nude for a photographer in the manner of Rodin's Thinker, but I merely looked constipated.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

The chief objection of playing wind instruments is that it prolongs the life of the player.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.

In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

What God hath joined together no man shall put asunder: God will take care of that.

Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.

He who has never hoped can never despair.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

The liar's punishment ... is that he cannot believe anyone else.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

Nobel prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.

The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted.

We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.

Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

If you can't appreciate what you've got, then you had better get what you can appreciate.

If you leave the smallest corner of your mind open for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.

We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

"Do you know what a pessimist is?" "A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it."

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

I’d like to be the person I could have been but never was.

CP A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.

If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a footrule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.

A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Successful people in this world are those who get up and look for circumstances they want. If they can't find them, they make them.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich--something for nothing.

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity.

An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means.There is no such thing in the country.

Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.

A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.

Hell is to drift; heaven is to steer.

Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful.

This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...

When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and , if they can't find them, make them.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it.

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

CP Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

CP Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.